Twitch Plays PMD: Fleeting Shadows
by GaliCat
Summary: A Cubone wakes up in Tiny Woods with no memory. No memory, and millions of voices inside its head. A Charmander named Abby has promised to help them, but Cubone and the Voices have too many enemies... including each other. Twitch Plays Pokemon "lore" based on an attempted playthrough of Red/Blue Rescue Team.
1. Awakening

A/N: This story is based off of the Twitch Plays Pokemon "canon," from a series of subjectively interpreted events from crowdplayed Pokemon games. The depiction of Bill, in particular, is based off of a screencap comic series called "Bill-Sanctioned Shenanigans," by Reddit's ZetsuTheFirst, otherwise known as LifeIsButAFleetingShadow here on .

This story, based on one of our abandoned Pokemon Mystery Dungeon urns (runs), is dedicated to him and his work. It is also dedicated to what I consider to be the single most amazing character he has created: the character of Twitch Plays Pokemon's Bill.

Through an amnesiac protagonist, hopefully I'll be able to keep this story relevant even to those of you who don't know the world and "lore" of Twitch Plays Pokemon.

Enjoy, and don't feed the trolls. We will become dependent.

. . .

 **Up.**

"Five more minutes, Zigzagoon," I muttered under my breath.

Wait - Zigzagoon? Who on earth was Zigzag...

 **UP.** The voice was insistent.

No, not a voice - _Voices._ More than one. A chorus in my head, speaking in unison, clearly ordering my body to pick itself up off the grass and get a move on.

Wait, why was I on the grass? I didn't remember being outside the li...

Scratch that. I didn't remember being inside, outside, in my lady's chamber, _anywhere._ I didn't remember where I was, who I was, or what I was doing. Heck with it, judging from how strange it felt to exist, I barely even remembered how it felt to be alive.

My own body felt alien - it was stubby, brown, pudgy, furry, and smelled like soot. I felt like I'd been toasted in an oven and was exactly the color to prove it. There was some sort of light, hard, oddly shaped helmet enveloping my head, and my entire right arm felt tingly. And was clutching a long thin something that I certainly didn't remember picking up.

Somehow I felt like something was off, that this couldn't be, that this just wasn't reality at all. But what else did I have to compare to it?

 _My_ _memory_ _was_ _blank_.

 **UP POGCHAMP!**

I got up. "Yes, _Mum_ ," I said sarcastically to the disembodied voices that were, like everything else, completely unfamiliar. "Anything else you want from me? A cup of tea? Ice cream? An omelette?"

Wait, what was an omelette?

I paused and mulled this over. All things considered, I decided it wasn't important at the time.

Once I was up on my feet, I managed to get a good look at my surroundings. Pale green grass, several large, lush pine trees, a few stumps, and a not-at-all-suspicious bleached arm bone lying right by my feet where I'd left it.

An _arm_ _bone?!_

I jumped back from the old bone as if it were a snake about to bite me. Some dark shred of a memory ripped through my skull, something involving red eyes and red blood, something...

My skull. Speaking of my skull, there was something on top of it, something which slipped as I jumped back (and tripped awkwardly; why did nobody ever tell me that I had a tail?), something which obscured my vision momentarily until I took it off and saw that...

...oh... kay... then.

It was another skull. I was wearing somebody else's skull over my own skull. Skullception.

Yeah, that's not at all creepy. Whose skull WAS it, anywa-

 **BILL IS DEAD**

 _Holy_ _Pigeot_.

Perhaps I'd been tuning out those Voices in my head for a while. Or perhaps I just couldn't properly hear them yet. But as soon as I started wondering just what the heck had happened to the former owner of these bones, the Voices started "celebrating":

 **WE KILLED BILL**

 **RIP IN PIECES BILL**

 **AOOOOOOO POGCHAMP**

 **VICTORY RIOT**

Now, mind you, I had no idea who Bill even was at that time. (Lucky me, as it were.) But when you're surrounded by bones, don't remember anything whatsoever before waking up three seconds earlier, and you have voices in your head bragging about killing someone, it's easy to jump to conclusions.

It was a completely natural reaction, but I'm still not proud of it. I threw both bones to the ground and ran, screaming like a traumatized Whismur.

. . .

I don't know what I thought running from the Voices would accomplish. I couldn't see where they were, I didn't know _what_ they were, and I had no real way of getting away from them. But it's basic human nature to run from anything that brags about killing people and leaving them in pieces, so that's precisely what I did.

Even though I clearly wasn't human.

I had no idea which way to run, of course, as I didn't know where I was or how I'd gotten there. But if everyone had to stop and carefully think about where they were running before they started fleeing for their lives, they wouldn't have lives to flee for in the end. So I just ran.

The Voices had no problem with this. Ironically, they seemed to enjoy it. In fact, I'd run a fair distance before I realized that 1. I was going around in circles, and 2. I was going in exactly the direction that the Voices were telling me to run in.

As I realized the moment I tripped over the same skull I'd tossed away fifteen minutes before.

. . .

"Hey, are you okay?"

 _That_ _wasn't_ _the_ _Voices_. It was somebody, or some _thing_ , else.

I felt a set of warm hands, reptilian hands, pull me up off the ground where I'd tripped. I felt hot breath from the orange-scaled bipedal saurian that owned them.

And I heard the other voice. Her voice. Warm... caring... but mostly warm, as she was after all a fire-type. And it was a heck of a lot more sympathetic than the Voices of the murdermongers.

 _"Abby?"_

I don't know if I somehow recognized her in a dark and ancient corner of my mind, or if the Voices remembered for me. Maybe the Voices didn't even recognize her for real, and just thought that every Charmander was named Abby for some odd reason.

 **ABBY**

 **She's alive guys**

 **WE SAVED ABBY**

And it _was_ the real Abby, somehow, although she blushed to be recognized. She seemed almost surprised - but not entirely surprised. "I... you know me?"

 **OH ABBY HOW WE MISSED YOU**

 **WE HAVE AVENGED YOU ABBY**

 **WE KILLED BILL AND SAVED ABBY**

 _ **Wait**_ **,** _ **wasn't**_ _ **it**_ _ **the**_ _ **False**_ _ **Prophet**_ _ **that**_ _ **killed**_ _ **her?**_

 **WHO CARES POGCHAMP**

I gulped as Abby helped me to my feet. I kept my voice as calm as humanly possible, despite not being human. "I... look, I know this sounds creepy, but I swear I never saw you before in my life." (Sadly inaccurate, though I didn't know it yet.) "No, it's the creepy murderous voices in my head that recognize you, and if I were you, I'd let go of me before they decide to do to you what they did to this guy." I pointed to the skull and arm bone in my hands and made a subtle slashing motion with my claws as a warning.

The Charmander looked down at the bones and blinked. And then, to my utter shock and terror, she started laughing.

It wasn't a nasty laugh, of course; to this day, I don't think I've ever heard a nasty laugh out of that Pokemon at all. But you understand, I was very unstable at the time. I had no memory of my past life (surprisingly fortunate), I had a bunch of murderous Voices in my head (unsurprisingly unfortunate), and I was naturally on edge and suspicious of everything. And from what the Voices had said, it sounded exactly as if Abby and the murder-Voices were all in cahoots, so I backed away in terror about as quickly as the Voices would let me.

But it wasn't a nasty laugh at all. Actually, it was a sympathetic one. "Silly... those are _old_ bones, Cubone! They're not fresh! They're from the Marowak Graveyard!"

I blinked. _Cubone_ and _Marowak_ were terms that I vaguely remembered, or at least thought I ought to remember, but the important part was what I did understand. I looked down at the bones I was holding and realized that Abby was right. The bones were dry, without a hint of blood or even recent violence on them. And while the arm bone was scratched up, the skull was... _oddly_ _pristine_.

"They don't match," I said disbelievingly. "I... I don't even think they're from the same being."

"Naturally," Abby shrugged. "They're from the Marowak Graveyard, remember? Countless generations of Cubone, Marowak, and orphaned Kangaskhan have lived and died wearing those bones as armor. They're sort of a cultural tradition. Granted, a lot of people find it creepy, but it's sort of their way of remembering their roots. Who they really are, and who came before them."

I stared at the bones in annoyance, brushing a thin dusting of sparkling ashes off of a crevice in the skull. I didn't really care to touch a dead thing, but I suppose my hands wanted to keep themselves busy.

"Well, Ms. Abby, _that_ is one distastefully obnoxious bit of irony for me. I don't know who I am. I barely even know who _you_ are, and that's because of those dratted Voi..."

My own voice trailed off, as I started to seriously question the legitimacy of trusting someone associated with these bloodthirsty Voices.

She blinked. "The Voices in your head..." she said, sounding sad. "I assure you, they're no friends of _mine_. I've encountered them so many times, but each time..."

She paused. "They took my friends away from me. And they took _me_ away from my friends."

I could guess how. "They... _killed_ people close to you?"

The Voices had gone quiet in my head at this point, mercifully enough. Probably from guilt - at least, I hope so. (Pity it didn't last.)

Abby sounded as if she was going to say something, but wasn't sure what. "They... they _might_ _have_. I... I'm honestly not sure _what_ they did to them..."

She quickly checked over her shoulder. "But we can't stand around Tiny Woods gabbing all day. _Dangerous_ _things_ could happen here. You're not the first one who's woken up here with Voices in your head and loss of memory, and you may not be the last. And if the pattern repeats, _you_ _could_ _be_ _in_ _great_ _danger_."

I should have paid more attention to those words.

But, sadly for everyone, I did not. "Oh, yes, because having murder-Voices in my head isn't dangerous enough already. Oh, you wouldn't happen to know who Bill was, would you?"

The look of shock in her eyes when I said that name could have curdled milk into cheese. It certainly curdled my stomach.

"Who... _did_ _the_ _Voices_ _tell_ _you_ _that_ _name?"_

Well, yeah. Who _else_ could have been talking to me all this time? This was the middle of the woods, for crying out loud.

But I didn't say that out loud. "They... said they... actually, they said WE... just... killed him..."

And as I said it, I received the sinking suspicion that I'd heard Bill's name somewhere before. Couldn't put a face to it, unfortunately, but I'd definitely heard it before.

There was silence. Dead silence, as dead as the owner of the skull and the bone. Abby kept staring at me - not with malice or hatred, but with a nevertheless fierce intensity, as if her gaze was going to bore holes through my skin.

I was about to suggest that she might have to arrest me, when she suddenly did something to me that made no sense whatsoever: she snatched the Marowak skull out of my hands and forced it firmly on my head.

"Hey!" I yelled. "That hurt! And this skull smells funny!"

"Well, get used to it. People see a Cubone running around without a skull on, they're going to start asking awkward questions. Questions you won't be able to answer. At least with this thing on, you'll _look_ normal."

"I'm not sure I _want_ to look normal!" The skull-helmet felt hot, stifling, confining. "Don't you realize the significance of what I just said? The memory loss, the Voices-"

"Exactly why you need to _not_ attract attention, genius," Abby snorted. Even as I tried repeatedly to take the skull off, she kept pushing it back on, as if she was trying to literally slam some sense inside my head. "We need to get you some help with this whole 'Voice Syndrome' business you've come down with. Hey, ever heard of that? Voice Syndrome?"

The Voices came back in my head, buzzing angrily and clearly of the opinion that they were being maligned. I won't be so crude as to repeat what they actually _said_ , but I believe comparisons were made between Bill and somebody else whose name I had genuinely never heard in my life.

"I don't recall anything specific," I admitted. "But the Voices do. Who's Hitler?"

Abby snorted. "Helixdomeit all if I know who Hitler was. Probably another Voice victim. But we've got to get you SOMEWHERE before-"

 _"Abby!"_ another voice said, from elsewhere in the forest. _"ABBY!"_

The Charmander groaned. "Aaaaaand right on schedule. Ms. Ozworm _again."_

Still confused. "Ms... _Ozworm?"_

Abby grabbed my arm and pulled me in the direction of the voice, "Just come on, stay silent, keep your skull on, and whatever you do, Don't. Mention. MURDER!"

"But I may have-"

 _"Don't_ _mention_ _it!"_

She had a pretty strong grip, and worst of all, the Voices took _her_ side. I was clearly outvoted on the use of my own body, and I had the sinking suspicion in the pit of my stomach that all of this was going to end poorly. Very, very poorly.

And in the end, I was absolutely right.

. . .

 _They_ _say_ _that_ _you_ _either_ _die_ _a_ _hero_ _or_ _you_ _live_ _long_ _enough_ _to_ _see_ _yourself_ _become_ _the_ _villain_.

 _My_ _name_ _is_ _Bill_.

 _This_ _is_ _the_ _story_ _of_ _how_ _I_ _died_...


	2. Are you a boy or a girl?

**DISCLAIMER: This story is based off of a Twitch Plays Pokemon game, and I am hardly responsible for what the Voices named our Cubone. Discretion will be applied in future chapters to avoid repeating the bad joke, but readers are advised to use their own discretion. But it is still my job to record what has happened, and if it helps, I'm probably a lot sorrier than you are.**

"Don't tell me," Abby sighed. "Your little Normie fell into _another_ fissure?!"

As Abby had instructed me, I stayed silent. Part of this was because I didn't want to upset a concerned mother with thoughts of murder. Another part was because I was hoping to high heaven that the Voices wouldn't come back to me. But a third part was - and I'll admit this is racist - that I was completely unnerved at the thought of having to communicate with a giant bug.

I had a lot to get used to.

To soothe my nerves, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine Ms. Ozworm as a pretty human woman instead. I'm not sure I did a good job of it at the time, given that I barely had any memory of what a human woman looked like - but she actually came out looking pretty good, if I do say so myself.

"Oh, is this your new partner?" the Butterfree suddenly asked, drawing unwelcome attention towards myself.

I cringed, trying to bluff it out. Abby stepped in. "This Cubone? Oh, no, it just woke up here. We haven't even been introduced yet." She paused, then turned towards me. "Honestly, I don't even know what _gender_ it is yet. Um, no offense, Cubone."

"None taken," I said politely. Then I paused, realizing that _I_ didn't even know what gender I was.

Abby sighed in relief. "So which is it, then?"

 _Uh-oh._

Sure, I was only wearing a skull, but somehow I felt like checking my anatomy in public would be quite inappropriate. Judging from the fact that Abby had posed the question to begin with, either there was no visible difference, or these two fine ladies were pointedly ignoring it. And if **I** admitted that I didn't know, then that could lead to a long and awkward discussion on genderfluidity that simply didn't apply in this case.

And then those stupid Voices decided that they were going to step in and "solve" my problem for me.

 **GRILL**

 **HE'S A GRILL GUYS**

 **BILL IS A GRILL**

 _ **shut**_ _ **up**_ _ **you**_ _ **idiots**_ _ **he'll**_ _ **hear**_ _ **you**_

 **SHE'LL HEAR YOU**

 **GRILL**

 **GRILL**

 **GRILL**

 **GRILL**

"What's a grill?" I asked, confused, as would be usual in the nightmare that would be the coming days.

Abby, to her credit, was as patient as a fishing Slowpoke. "It's a machine that non-fire-types use to cook things outside. Why?"

I paused. Ms. Ozworm was looking at me all... well, I don't want to sound specist, but she was looking at me all bug-eyed. Even more so than usual for a Butterfree.

"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all."

Abby sighed. "Oh, you thought I said _grill_ when I said _girl_ , didn't you? That's a common mistake for those poss- I mean, for those **in** **contact** **with** the Voices." She emphasized those three words as much for Ms. Ozworm's sake as for my own."

Gosh, how much did Abby know about...? "Oh, _right_. I assure you, I'm fine. Must have been this stupid skull," I muttered, trying to pull it off so I could hear properly.

Which Abby quickly pushed back on. "Sounds like the Voices say you're a girl. You have a name, right, Bonehead?"

I felt very much offended by this sudden declaration; **I** certainly hadn't been consulted! On the other hand, it's not like I _knew_ , either.

"Cubone," I said, then realized that it was my species, not an actual name. "Er..." I interjected quickly, trying to probe my brain for a name that was actually, well, a _name_.

I should never have spoken that quickly. Or, at least, I should have chosen a less easily misinterpreted interjection, because the Voices took my statement completely literally:

 **CUBONER**

 **Guys he said it himself**

 **SHE SAID IT HERSELF**

 _ **This**_ _ **is**_ _ **humiliating**_

 **VICTREEBEL RIOT**

And several other, much less printable messages.

. . .

Look, I'm going to spare myself the humiliation and cut to the chase. By the time Abby, myself, and those moronic Voices in my head actually set out to go rescue that poor little Caterpie, the Voices had done a fine job of convincing Ms. Osworm, and everyone else, that I was a female Cubone with a name that suggested a highly questionable occupation, or at least a lousy legal guardian.

But Abby said it was all right; by this point, the Voices were so well-heard-of that incidents like that were entirely commonplace and easily ignored. And everyone else had just learned to roll with it.

Easy for them to say. They weren't the ones stuck with that stupid name.

At least that disaster convinced me to keep my skull on, if for no other reason than I never intended to show my face again.


	3. Tiny Woods

So. This is how our little trek through "Tiny Woods" went:

Walk a few paces.

Pause as the Voices in my head argue over which way to go. Lean on Abby for comfort.

Observe that Abby herself does not appear completely comfortable, particularly when I am leaning on her. Reassure Abby that at least she's not me.

Get approached by a random stranger or six. Like, say, a bird, a caterpillar, a thoroughly creepy sentient bug-eyed seed, or some group of telepathic eggs that are crying to kill us all.

Abby attempts to introduce us both to the random stranger(s), with the inevitably futile hope that we can be civil.

The stranger(s) promptly laugh at my name.

The Voices cry foul and order me to beat the stranger(s) up, which, incidentally, I'm not very good at.

Abby wrecks the strangers while I hide behind that stupid Marowak skull, which gives me a headache. The jerk Pokemon who attacked and/or insulted us runs away crying while I try to pretend I'm not there. The voices **VICTORY RIOT** , which also gives me a headache.

And then we walk a few paces again.

I'd certainly had far more pleasant experiences in my life. It's a pity I couldn't remember them.

"Is this what living feels like?" I asked Abby.

She shrugs. "You get used to it. It beats the alternative."

I found that strangely hard to believe at the time.

We kept finding money lying around out in the open. Just a few coins, pocket change really. Much to my surprise, Abby was carrying a rucksack, so we were able to hold on to any goods we found.

Although, and I'm sorry to say this but in fairness to Abby I feel that I must, I once nearly set the rucksack on fire trying to put out Abby's tail, which I kept forgetting was _supposed_ to be burning. And it wasn't long before she slapped me right in the face for it.

With her tail. Seriously, she slapped me with the end of her own burning tail. Which, for once in what I could remember of my life, made me actually _glad_ I had that lousy skull clamped over my head. Although the skull did make it harder for me to wipe the soot out of my eyes.

"Will you _stop_ _trying_ _to_ _kill_ _me?!"_ she hissed in my face.

"I wasn't trying to-!" I insisted. (Because I wasn't, of course.)

"Then _stop_ _stomping_ _on_ _my_ _tail!"_

All things considered, it was an awkward journey.

. . .

We finally did find that poor Caterpie, Normie, stuck in a crevasse.

"Don't you know better than to go near places like that?" I found myself saying quite sternly, almost parentally. "You could have been killed!"

Normie sniffled. "I-I-I... I d-didn't! Th-the ground j-j-just opened up under me!"

"Just like _last_ time," Abby pointed out. "And the time before, and the time before _that_... Normie, this is not a safe place to play! How did you even get past all those Pidgey, I'd like to know?"

"I-I-I-I'm s-s-s-sorry..."

"Someone really ought to do something about all those ruffians rushing about," I muttered offhandedly as I helped Abby wield a long branch for Normie to cling to.

"I'd say," Abby agreed, sighing.

She didn't look me in the eye when she said it. I barely noticed that, because after that unfortunate journey, I didn't really want to look at _her_ either.

What else can I say? We rescued the kid and brought him back to his mother, who of course showered us with lavish gratitude and a few berries. I wasn't sure I wanted the gratitude, but I accepted the berries (being insulted is hungry work).

Honestly, I just wanted to wash my paws of the whole thing after that one. Nice knowing you, Abby, I'll be seeing you, good luck with keeping your tail on fire. Just go home, take a nice bath and a long, long nap…

Except that I had no memory to speak of. As such, I had no idea whatsoever where "home" _was_.

Abby said she knew a place where I could stay. I found this questionable, pointing out that some stranger with voices in "her" head who was wearing _bones_ (and nothing else) would probably have a hard time getting a landlord's approval, but Abby insisted that it was all right.

The house had been vacant for two years, ever since the previous tenant had been declared "absent without leave," but apparently it was a house Abby had had built for Pokemon suffering from a similar condition to mine – i.e. amnesia slash strange voices in one's head.

"You mean I'm not the _first_ Pokemon this has happened to?" I wasn't sure whether this was more comforting or disturbing.

"Well… yes and no. The other Pokemon…" Abby paused, and I caught a brief flash in her eyes as if she was considering whether or not to tell me something deeply, deeply disturbing.

I asked the obvious question. "So the previous tenant just _left_ , or _disappeared?"_

Abby cleared her throat, unintentionally sending small sparks flying at my skull-covered face. "The Pokemon there have… left under unknown circumstances. Some say that the Voices led them back to the Outside. Some say that they turned back into humans-"

"Back into humans? BACK into humans?!"

"It's late. You're tired. You've been routinely attacked by a bunch of jerks. Cuboner, if we don't get you home and let you rest _somewhere_ , you're going to go off the deep end."

"You mean I haven't already?"

That was probably the best news I'd heard all day, even though the Voices in my head kept saying things that apparently indicated otherwise.

Abby nodded. "Actually, you did pretty good for a first-day Host. But you _need_ to sleep. Otherwise, you're just going to keep hurting yourself."

"If that's _good_ , I'd hate to see _bad_." I paused. "Um, Host?"

She sighed. "I'll explain in the morning. Look, if you're worried about the house, it's not haunted, and I can stay with you the first night in case you're worried about those Exeggcute goons coming back. No sweat."

I actually smiled. "I think that would be—"

 **GUYS WE NEED TO SEX ABBY**

"—you know what, I think I'll take a rain check on that one."

 _To_ _be_ _continued_ …


	4. Sleepless in Skullsville

I did not expect to get a lot of sleep my first night in the Crazy House, as I called it.

And I didn't.

For starters, the "bed" was more of a nest of straw, which was scratchy and made me sneeze. For another thing, even though the Voices in my head had quieted down and were no longer putting violent and/or rape-y thoughts in my head, there was always the risk that they could well come back.

Obviously Abby considered my condition to be unstable and potentially dangerous, and I couldn't argue with _that_. I still couldn't convince myself that waking up with no memory while wearing bones wasn't a clear sign that I was a serial killer, especially after what the Voices had said involving murder.

I took the skull off my head and stared hard at the blasted thing. The main "victims" that I could remember the Voices citing were Abby, who was very much alive despite having her tail on fire, and some guy named Bill, who apparently was something called a Sylveon.

Abby was nice enough, but obviously not dead.

Bill, on the other hand... didn't sound like the kind of person **I'd** ever want to meet. Too... _carnivorous_. I privately hoped that the Voices were correct in their assessment of his death and that the bones were his.

Although... in fairness, maybe the Voices were wrong about Bill. Not necessarily about his death (though that was definitely possible), but maybe about Bill himself. Considering the process by which they'd decided my gender, it seemed almost as if they just grabbed any idea they wanted and ran with it.

And a gender check was easy enough, right? I was alone, the Voices were quiet, and the house didn't _seem_ haunted. So I decided I might as well contemplate whatever was south of my navel.

. . .

. . .

One self-patdown later, I came to the very disturbing conclusion that I was correct in rejecting Abby's sleepover offer.

As much as I disliked the idea of it, I knew I'd have to warn her in the morning. I'd probably wind up chained to the bed, except that the bed was a pile of straw and you can't really chain anything to a haystack.

Aaaaaand _that_ thought came entirely out of left field and clearly should have stayed there. I freely admitted to myself that I was fatigued, not thinking clearly, and should get some sleep. I set the skull down by the pile of straw, fluffed up a mock pillow of hay, and closed my eyes.

 **DANCE RIOT**

As I said, I didn't get much sleep at all.


	5. Bad Dreams

I finally slept. My dreams were dark ones.

I appeared to be inside a house - no, a _tower_ of some sort. I wasn't sure how I knew this, as the dream took place in only one room, but I knew I was above sea level. Dreams can be strange that way.

The room was full of technology, and what I surmised to be some sort of capsule system. Two large chambers towered over my Cubone body, and a computer desk sat in front of one of them, with papers on it.

Something seemed oddly sinister about the setup. Terrifying, even. And yet, despite the dubious technology, the room around it seemed comforting. Serene, even. Dare I say homely? It was only a dream, after all, and I probably misremembered a good deal of it.

But I do remember hearing footsteps.

Somebody was stumbling through the door. And by "stumbling," I mean "that kid can't possibly be old enough to have legally ingested whatever substance is causing him to move like this."

While I hadn't seen a human since I'd woken up with my memories lost, some part of me instantly identified the child in red as one. The realization of how BIG humans were made my dream-self jump back in shock; I couldn't imagine how they even managed to move without bumping into things the way this poor kid did. My first thought was _Get_ _off_ _my_ _lawn_ , and my second thought, immediately following the first thought, was _HALP_.

The kid suddenly stopped and looked at me, straight into my eyes. His expression seemed empty, stoned, almost robotic. And the bags under his eyes made it clear that he hadn't slept for days.

He pointed at me, opening his mouth to speak. But no sound came.

And then I woke up in a cold sweat.

. . .

I told myself that it was just a dream, that it couldn't hurt me. I knew I was in a sorry state when even the itchy straw felt comforting.

Eventually, I went back to sleep.

And the dream came back.

. . .

It was the same room. The same machines. The same kid, and the same haunted look in his eyes.

But this time, I expected it, sort of. And I was conscious that it was a dream, sort of. But that didn't make it any less awful.

It's... difficult to put a handle on how I experienced things at that time, talking about it now after so much time has passed. But I remember that the kid pointed at me again, and opened his mouth again, and there were no words this time either, but this time, he had a red and white orb in his hand, with a button in the middle.

He pressed the button, and a flash of red light emerged, converging into a burning red figure. A reptilian figure, with bright red skin and a spiked collar.

A female, with her tail burning as brightly as a lighthouse beacon.

I opened my mouth to say something, but suddenly the human behind her vanished, her red scales became blazing white light, and her bright eyes sunk and vanished inside her head, revealing empty, soulless black sockets.

 **"YOUR TIME IS UP."**

 _"ABBY!"_ I screamed, not knowing quite why. Was I calling out to my friend the Charmander, or to the wraithlike figure in the dream?

I woke up screaming.

. . .

When Abby came to see me in the morning, I had no memory that either dream had even transpired. Which was probably a good thing, but sadly wasn't going to last forever.

She found me nailing a wooden sign to my mailbox with a spike, a sign with the name KUBONIR scrawled on it in charcoal as neatly as I could muster under the circumstances.

"Scrawled" and "neatly" don't usually work well together, but writing and Cubone claws don't work well together either. Especially with how numb my right arm was; it felt almost as if it wasn't a natural part of my body. I found it difficult to even wield my bone club properly, so I mainly used it as a crutch to keep my balance with that horrid hot smelly skull on my head.

From the expression on her face when she saw me, I wouldn't have been surprised if Abby had been waiting outside my door all night long to make sure I was okay. I wasn't sure if that would have been taken as the actions of a concerned citizen and friend of a mentally ill Pokemon, or as a stalker. Still, I figured that I would have smelled smoke if she'd stayed outside _all_ night, and I'd have probably seen her tail flicker as well. (Gosh, that must be awkward, having your butt constantly on fire and not being able to do anything about it as long as you're alive.)

"How did you sleep last night, Cue?" she asked, respectfully and conveniently not giving my full name. Then she saw the sign I'd made. "Oh! Kubonir... is THAT how you spell it?"

Well, the truth is that I didn't know how to spell it either, or if it could be spelled; it wasn't even a real name, just an awkward mispronunciation. But at least Kubonir sounded interesting and foreign and _not_ like the Voices' crude joke at my expense. I wondered, with some concern, if they'd given any rude names to the _other_ victims of their little mental field trips. I could think of a few nicknames I'd like to give them, if I could capture one somehow.

"It's how everyone else in my family spells it," I lied, "and who am I to argue with them?"

Abby smiled. "You have family? And you remember them? That's..."

She paused, trailing off. "Wait. Do you mean a Pokemon family, or a _human_ family?"

The question startled me, and reminded me of what she'd said the previous night about the previous victims of the Voices. "Oh? No, I mean the Voices in my head," I lied blatantly. "They're all I remember, and they're the closest thing to family I have because they live in my house, metaphorically speaking, and i have no idea how to evict them."

Abby laughed. Her tailflame flickered.

I stepped back and admired my work. The sign hung under the mailbox like an overturned Kakuna that rocked when you tapped it. But it was legible, and it didn't look like a rude joke, at least not if you were particularly forgiving.

"Kubonir," Abby said, testing a slightly different pronunciation on her tongue. Strangely enough, it wasn't the forked, lizard-like tongue I'd expected, but large and smooth, like a doge's.

Wait, what was a doge?

 **Mighty Doge**

 **AOOOOO**

 **Save the Doges**

 **Burrito x Martyr OTP**

 **KILL THE FALSE PROPHET**

 **Solareon will redeem us**

 **KILL BILL**

And other, far less savory things.

"Say, Abby?" I asked, suddenly. "I hope I'm not being rude, but... do _you_ have family?"

Abby's tailflame flared, blazing. The look in her eyes seemed... haunted. And I was instantly sorry I'd asked.

"I did, once," she said softly. "A human, a Pidgeot, two Rattata..." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter anymore. They're all dead now."

I opened my mouth, realized I had nothing whatsoever edifying to say, and then closed it again. "Oh," was all I managed to get out.

What could I have said to her, when I barely even remembered what family even was?


End file.
